Not so fast

Remember last year, when the Trump administration asked national park goers to “report any signs or other information that are negative about either past or living Americans or that fail to emphasize the beauty, grandeur and abundance of landscapes and other natural features”?

Well, it seems park-goers have pushed back, bigly.

 New analysis of the more than 35,700 comments submitted from June 2025- January 2026 found overwhelming sentiment from the public to keep American history intact, warts and all.

According to the Center for Western Priorities, which organized the comments into seven categories, the largest category was "General opposition to the order," which accounted for nearly 10,000 responses. This was followed by "Defend historical accuracy" (more than 5,000 responses) and "General pro-parks support" (more than 4,000).

Other notable categories of public feedback included comments on the "Park visit experience," "Trump / Burgum criticism" and a number of "Off-topic / jokes / spam" submissions, including our favorite from Washington’s Cascade National Park, “Didn’t see any Bigfeets.”

In contrast, only 47 comments, or 0.1% of the total submitted, "Flagged signage or supported removal." 

In March 2025, President Trump issued Executive Order 14253, “Restoring Truth and Sanity to American History.” In response, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum ordered national park staff to put up signs asking park visitors to report any signage that put America in an unflattering light.

This May, the Department of the Interior released the 35,700 comments, which were submitted through a QR code, in response to a FOIA request by the Sierra Club and others. 

“Tell Trump to stop erasing history. Those absurd new signs to report negative history must come down,” said one comment from Amache National Historic Site, a WWII Japanese internment camp in Colorado. “If our country erases the darker chapters of our history, we will never learn from our mistakes.”

At Sand Creek, where American troops massacred hundreds of peaceful Cheyenne and Arapaho, a visitor commented, “We need to remember the past so we don’t repeat our mistakes in the future. Ignoring or trying to rewrite history accomplishes nothing.”

The full dataset of comments can be seen on the NPS website’s “Frequently Requested Documents” page.